OBJECTIVES: The objectives of this paper were (1) to review the literature for information about post-traumatic stress disorder among Chinese women survivors of intimate partner violence; (2) to provide a synthesis of the literature on post-traumatic stress disorder among abused Chinese women; and (3) to identify implications for practice and to suggest directions for research relating to post-traumatic stress disorder among abused Chinese women.
DESIGN: A systematic review of the literature.
DATA SOURCES: Following a systematic search for relevant literature in computerized databases and manual searches of English and Chinese language publications, five papers reporting on four studies conducted in China, Taiwan, Malaysia, and the United States were included in the review.
REVIEW METHODS: Abstracts meeting the inclusion criteria were reviewed independently by two of the authors and any discrepancies were resolved by discussion. Full papers for selected abstracts were then retrieved and assessed independently by the same reviewers.
RESULTS: The present literature review revealed a paucity of information relating to post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms or diagnoses in abused Chinese women. Nevertheless, a link between post-traumatic stress disorder and intimate partner violence was demonstrated by the reviewed papers.
CONCLUSIONS: Caution should be exercised when making comparison of the findings across the four studies because of the inherent methodological differences. Also, as the assessment tools have not been validated for culture-bound interpretation of trauma and symptom manifestation, comparisons of findings for Chinese women to women in Western literature should be undertaken with due consideration. Implications for practice and recommendations for future research are discussed.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: This prospective, observational study was conducted from March 2021 to March 2023, involving adult DV victims aged 18 years and above admitted to the One Stop Crisis Center (OSCC) of Sarawak General Hospital. Data were collected from the OSCC clerking sheet, focusing on the victims, perpetrators and the violence characteristics.
RESULTS: A total of 133 DV victims were analysed, with 25.6% being male victims. Although majority of the perpetrators in cases involving male victims were male perpetrators, there was a significantly higher number of female perpetrators in these male DV cases (i.e., 5 out of 34 cases,14.7%) compared to in female DV cases (4 out of 99 cases, 4.0%) (p = 0.05). The commonest type of relationship between the victims and perpetrators was spouses or ex-spouses (56.4%). Male victims had more cases involving weapons (67.6%) compared to female victims (26.3%), p < 0.001. The most affected anatomical region was the head and neck (63.9%) region although no significant differences were observed.
CONCLUSION: The study reveals that DV affects individuals across all societal classes and income groups. Although weapons were used more frequently in male DV cases, other injury characteristics and affected anatomical regions were not significantly different between genders, suggesting female perpetrators can inflict similar injuries as male perpetrators. Subgroup analysis showed that the majority of male victims faced abuse from their children or grandchildren, hinting at hidden geriatric abuse, that should be unmasked and treated as a separate entity.